Leibniz’s Final System, Monads, Matter and Animals
For reading a book, Please sign in to your account.
loginThis book began in earnest when I read an undergraduate paper by HillaryRosenberg at the University of Michigan in 2000. In the midst ofexpounding passages in the Arnauld Correspondence (LA 74–8; 90–102),she wrote:
At first Leibniz maintains that only things with a soul are real beings.In some parts of the text, Leibniz claims that the body itself, separatedfrom the soul, cannot be considered a real substance because, just likea machine or a pile of rocks, it is a being of aggregation, not a unity,and so can be divided and destroyed....However, Leibniz hedges onthe definition of real objects, and he opens the door for the existence ofother real beings besides animated objects. He now claims thataggregates can be real since they are composed of simple units and‘‘there is no plurality without true unities.’’ Here Leibniz allows moreobjects into reality. Instead of only animate objects being real, hisreality test incorporates...pluralities (inanimate objects) because theyarecomposedof true unities. If they were not composed of beings withtrue unity, then these pluralities would be deprived of all reality andthus imaginary. Leibniz wants us to be wary of considering pluralitiesas real because he doesn’t want extension to contribute to realness.[W]hen we use reason to get to the heart of the aggregate and perceivethat it is composed of true unities, we can realize that pluralities are infact real.
